Gro Harlem Brundtland

Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland "took office as Director-General of the World Health Organization on 21 July 1998. Dr Brundtland was nominated by WHO's Executive Board on 27 January and elected to the post on 13 May by the Member States of WHO. Her term of office ended on 21 July 2003."

"Dr Brundtland's first choice of career was neither environmentalist nor politician, but to become a doctor like her father. He was a specialist in rehabilitation medicine, a skill much in demand following the Second World War. When Gro Harlem was 10 years old, the family moved to the United States where her father had been awarded a Rockefeller scholarship. The seeds of internationalism were sown in the young Gro...

"Throughout her political career, Dr Brundtland has developed a growing concern for issues of global significance. In 1983 the then United Nations Secretary-General invited her to establish and chair the World Commission on Environment and Development. The Commission, which is best known for developing the broad political concept of sustainable development, published its report Our Common Future in April 1987.

"The Commission's recommendations led to the Earth Summit - the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

"Dr Brundtland finally stepped down as Prime Minister in October 1996. In her successful bid to become Director-General of the World Health Organization her many skills as doctor, politician, activist and manager have come together."


 * Director, Better World Fund
 * Former Trustee, Better World Society
 * Friends of the Institute, International Institute for Sustainable Development
 * Winner of the 2002 Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute: Four Freedoms Award
 * Member, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict
 * Winner (2009), Tallberg Foundation Award
 * Member, The Elders

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